Naval Sonar Is Killing And Beaching Whales

Monday, 18 February 2019

Linda Chivell

We have known for a long time that naval sonar has devastating effects on marine life but just exactly how it leads to sickness and death was a mystery till now.

The sound emitted by sonar is so intense that marine mammals will swim hundreds of miles, dive deep into the abyss or even beach themselves to flee from the sounds that are literally unbearable to them, according to new research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B,

Beaked whales, in particular, are one of the marine mammals that are often found beached due to sonar testing. Prior to the 1960s, beaked whale strandings were extremely rare, that was until the Navy started to use mid-frequency active sonar (MFAS) to detect submarines. More and more frequently, whales started washing up on beaches after the 1960s

In a paper that was recently published whale experts revealed that sonar distresses beaked whales so much that the marine mammals end up with nitrogen bubbles in their blood very similar to what divers would call decompression sickness or the bends.

And if that is not horrific enough, the nitrogen caused haemorrhaging and damage to whales vital organs.

Asking the big question was how an animal that lives in the ocean and is adapted to perform deep water dives for hours at a time can obtain decompression sickness? In laymen’s terms; the sonar is so powerful that the animals dive deep too quickly causing the sickness.“In the presence of sonar, they are stressed and swim vigorously away from the sound source, changing their diving pattern,” according to the lead author Yara Bernaldo de Quiros

“The stress response, in other words, overrides the diving response, which makes the animals accumulate nitrogen. It’s like an adrenalin shot.”

The conclusions are drawn from autopsies of dead whales, although a handful of animals were killed by other threats inflicted by humans, such as collisions with ships or entanglement in fishing nets, as well as disease.

The scientists suggested that to mitigate the impacts of sonar on beaked whales, sonar must be banned in areas frequented by beaked whales. The moratorium on the use of MFAS around the Canary Islands in 2004 is proof of just how well this works – no atypical strandings have been seen since.

The researchers implored other countries such as the US, Greece, Italy, and Japan, where sonar is deployed, to follow suit.